Once in a while, you’ve got to have fancy French food too. I ate lots of bánh mì, pho and loved this aromatic catfish dish called cha cá lã vong. I refuse to be the person who goes into a foreign culture and is ordering the hotel’s club sandwich. Especially in a city that’s so unbelievably hot, it feels crazy to get up and have soup first thing, but then I started imagining how ridiculous Westerners must look, sitting around like 9-year-olds eating sugar and syrup and pastries for breakfast. I discovered that pho is actually breakfast! I didn’t realize that, and I think most Americans don’t know this. My favorite coffee shop was Cong Caphe, an incredible place for coconut coffee, which is essentially, like, a 7 million-calorie dessert. The actor (with his wife, Michelle) hiked at Nui Chua National Park while staying at the Amanoi. One of the movie crewmembers sent me a giant list of all her favorite recommendations, and I think I got most. I tried to eat and drink as much of the city as I could. So in Hanoi, I made sure that I was up and across town, sitting in a tiny plastic chair, eating soup on the sidewalk at 6 a.m.

I knew that once we wrapped and my wife, Michelle, came to join me, we’d be going on this cushy, romantic trip down the coast - the kind of trip that drives everybody insane on Instagram. Every corner you turn is a completely different feeling. There’s prom kids taking pictures in front of Dior, and then you walk a few blocks and it’s people selling chicken feet in the middle of the street and you’re getting run over by mopeds. When you walk outside, all the fancy shops are right there.

We were staying in this old, beautiful hotel, the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hotel, not far from the Old Quarter. Ben Feldman with Rachael Leigh Cook in Netflix’s A Tourist’s Guide to Love, which was released April 21.

Anthony bourdain travel guide